Karen Hermiston

Karen Margaret Andresen (née Hermeston; 1916 – 2007), better known as Karen Hermeston, was a Canadian photographer who served as the Canadian Army's first female war photographer during the Second World War.

Early life Hermeston was born in Ontario and raised in Englehart by parents Angus Melvin and Maren Hermeston. She had a brother, Douglas, who was born nine years later. She maintained a dark room at her parents' home in Englehart before and during the war. Her maiden name is sometimes recorded as Hermiston.

Army career In June 1941, nearly two years after Canada's entry into the Second World War, the Canadian Army created a unit tasked with documenting the country's war effort. The Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit (CFPU) was tasked with producing "informational and inspirational material" for the purposes of maintaining morale and boosting recruitment. However, it would be a year before she was supplied with a press camera and the appropriate pay for an army press official. Her deployment, and status as the first woman to serve as an army photographer, attracted national news coverage at the time.

Although she was supposed to be stationed in France or Italy to photograph the conflict, Hermeston was initially held back in England after superiors there refused to send a woman to the front lines.

By 1945, Hermeston was permitted to accompany war correspondents to CWAC posts around Europe, documenting their activities in places including Copenhagen and Brussels. As of 2026, some of Hermeston's photographs are preserved in a digitized collection by Library and Archives Canada.

Hermeston was among the Canadian personnel photographed celebrating Victory over Japan Day in Piccadilly Circus, London on August 10, 1945. By the end of the war, Hermeston remained the sole woman in the CFPU, which contained 76 photographers in total. They returned to Canada in 1946, settling permanently in Sudbury.

Career Until the late 1970s, Hermeston was a staff photographer for the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests. In this role, she documented the actions of conservation officers and took pictures for the department's annual reports, as well as its journal, Sylva. Photographs taken by Hermeston in her role as a civil servant would feature in publications including outdoor recreation periodicals, and a 2007 book by Bryony Coles.

Shortly after the Mississagi Fire of 1948, Hermeston worked on a short film produced by the department to depict a salvage operation of timber damaged by the flames. As of 2026, the finished production, Out of the Smoke! (1950), is hosted on YouTube by the Archives of Ontario. Her work was also featured in two non-fiction books by writer and journalist Jack Hambleton: Hunter's Holidays (1947),

Later in life, Hermeston also taught photography at Laurentian University. Until her death in 2007, she maintained a dark room at her home.